"These are... quite the first try?" Celi muttered, watching the deford beakers and shapes of glass that had accumulated beneath their feet. Belk, Vagnis, and Sylvi hung their heads in sha, staring at their abominations with furrowed brows.
"This is actually the eighteenth try..." Sylvi murmured. Her words weighed on them even more, sha gnawing at their heels. The caws of birds littering the land fluttered up to the sky as dawn approached, their cries adding mockery to their hubris.
"I don’t get it! Just what are we doing wrong here?!" Belk exclaid, gripping the notes Astra had given him. He glanced between the scribbled sketches and the misshapen glass they had created, frustration bubbling within him.
"This blows—" He spat, dropping the paper onto the pile. "Where’s Astra when you need her!?"
"She’ll be gone for a few days," Celi inford them. At her words, everyone turned, intrigue and concern flickering across their faces. "She set out to gather the required materials for the battery... and a few other things."
"That long, huh..." Vagnis muttered, his gaze shifting back to the ironmill.
"Well—let’s end it there for today. It’s getting late." The scientist stretched, trying to shake off his fatigue before walking off. He waved a dismissive hand as if shooing away his problems.
Celi nodded and followed, while Sylvi lingered, taking a closer look at the broken glass scattered around them. "What do we do about these?"
"Leave them..." Vagnis muttered, picking up his tal pipe once more. His hands, slightly pink from handling molten glass, tightened around the sturdy tal. "We’ll just try again from scratch."
Sylvi looked up at Vagnis, watching his intense focus. The scout dipped the tal pipe into the molten glass once more, rotating it within the ironmill until it ford a round shape. He molded it as best he could, watching the sloshing molten goo cling to the pipe.
Slowly, he pulled it out, turning the pipe as steadily as he could manage. His hands wavered ever so slightly, causing the glass to briefly distort before regaining its shape.
"I’ll help you!" Sylvi said, standing up straight, excitent flashing in her eyes.
Vagnis looked down at the girl, montarily caught off guard before letting out a small smile and nodding. The two carefully got to work, Sylvi connecting the pipe to the other end of the glass after Vagnis had blown it to its apex.
"Water, quickly," Vagnis ordered, holding up both the glass and the staff on the other end. Sylvi poured water on it just as before, severing its connection.
They worked without end until the sun had truly vanished from the sky, the stars littering the cosmos, watching over their efforts to reach them.
"Another failure..." Vagnis hissed, crossing his arms as Sylvi held up the new creation. The beaker was almost perfect, yet its flaws were still clear, even to the untrained eye.
"But it’s close," she pointed out, holding it up to the sky.
"Not close enough—" he grumbled, picking up the iron pipe again and dipping it back into the molten glass. Sylvi watched as the scout continued his work, turning the pipe, keeping his pace steady, striving for consistency.
"Steady..." he muttered under his breath. The fire raged before him, its flickering flas crackling against the glass he needed to shape.
Sylvi soon drifted off, falling asleep in the grass, her soft snores lost beneath the roaring flas. Vagnis continued, loss after loss, glass after glass shattering against the earth. Yet he pressed on, his hands knowing no rest, his fingers moving in harmony with the tool he held.
It felt as though he was taming a beast, the fla licking against the edge of the pipe. The glass whistled under the intense pressure. His hands steady against the pipe, sweat dropping on his arms as he tried to keep his breath controlled
One slip up and it could collapse, and his efforts will be for nothing. Even as the smoke stung his eyes, even as his lungs burned.
"What I need is soone to keep up when I go running!" those words ca back to him as he pulled the molten glass out of the ironmill and began to blow.
Slowly the glass began to expand, lighting up the area around it in a dim desperate attempt to glow.
’More...’ Vagnis thought, as he kept going and going without break, he couldn’t stop now, he needed to keep going, more and more it expanded showing a translucent reflection of the sky.
an ocean of ink dotted with shimring diamonds. The stars hung in the sky like scattered jewels, scattered with abandon but arranged in a pattern only the universe knew. Each one flickered with quiet intensity, it felt taunting, daring him to reach them.
’I need you to go to see the stars with ...’ He quipped in his head, sothing inside him finally getting it. When the glass finally got to it’s needed size, he slid the pipe down his arm, holding just outside of the connection giving him better access to stick the other side.
"I’ll see this done!" He exclaid, as he continued to work, a fla now lit under him that he couldn’t put into words, a fla hotter than a mill that could even lt diamonds. "I’ll help science in any way I can!"
"This is exciting..."
[Class evolution!]
[New class activated!]
[Vagnis; class,]
[Craftsman!]
"What I need is soone to keep up when I go running," He rembered Belk’s hand stretched out to him in that very instant, the young scientist willing to accept soone who turned their back to him for the sake of exploration. "I need you to go to see the stars with ..."
He felt the conflicted feelings he felt back then, his hand soon took his grasp, their grip tightening in an unspoken bond, never to be broken again.
"Understood..."
Eventually, the sun rose, casting its first golden rays across the horizon, a quiet herald to the new day. The sky, still darkened with the remnants of night, began to soften under the warmth of dawn. A pale light crept over the land, touching everything with a gentle, unspoken promise of a fresh start.
"What the hell?!" Belk exclaid, he and Celi watching the assortnt of beakers done and pristine, left on the table near the mill, both Sylvi and Vagnis passed out on the grass beside the quenched flas.
"Impressive," Celi muttered, her gaze to the boy. "Astra, you’ve seem to have found yourself so competent allies."
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